Homemade Shampoo

Yesterday I talked about Argan Oil. Which can be used in place of moisturizers (one ingredient-imagine that!). Today I want to talk about Shampoo. I want to get rid of all our shampoos, because I have come to the realization that I don't really need them.

I google-searched "homemade shampoo" and this site popped up. The site has 10 different recipes for shampoos, and nothing I am doing in this post is anything original. Everything has been taken from them. All the shampoos foam because of the ingredient Castile Soap. I have heard of castile soap--aka, Dr Bronners. But it wasn't until I really looked into it that I understood what it was and why it was different.

Castile soap is a soap that was a long time ago made in a simple process of boiling plant ashes (which contained sodium bicarbonate) along with local olive oil and with a brine. The result was a hard soap that solidified in the boiling water. And many of the impurities of the ashes, like lye, settled out of the finished product. I liked the way this sounded. Modern Castile Soaps have more than three ingredients, but not that many more. And I like the fact that every ingredient is one I know and understand and can pronounce.

Last weekend I purchased Dr Bronner's Castile Soap in the Unscented Baby-Mild variety. I started using it for all my showers and bathing the kids. This soap contains: Water, Organic Coconut Oil, Potassium Hydroxide, Organic Olive Oil, Organic Hemp Oil, Organic Jojoba Oil, Citric Acid, Tocopherol. I love it! The Potassium Hydroxide is the agent that is used to making the soap come together according to some of the websites I read. And if you even want to go a further step and make your own--I found a pretty cool video of someone doing just that. It shows you step by step how to make liquid soap. Don't you just love the Internet???

So I am sold on the Castile Soap. But what about for my hair. I still feel like my hair needs something a little kinder, like perhaps some oils to help it from getting dried out. I found a nice easy recipe for shampoo from the website I linked to earlier.

BASIC
For normal hair, or as a base to add your own scents, use
1/4 cup distilled water
1/4 cup liquid Castile Soap - I use unscented, but you can choose your favorite
1/2 teaspoon jojoba, grapeseed, or other light vegetable oil

Mix together all the ingredients. Store in a bottle. Shake before use.This mixture isn't as thick as commercial shampoos - you'll need to just tilt the bottle over your head.
**I am making mine with Argan Oil, because I have a little laying around.

There are several other recipes on that website for shampoos with various essential oils for making the shampoo more vibrant, or soothing. I am very interested to try this. But I get nervous when dealing with essential oils. Though Fariway does carry them, as likely does Whole Foods and the like, they are expensive and I don't want to screw it up. Scents are really my thing. It has been ages since I wore perfume. I also don't want to get an essential oil that I end up not liking. I stumbled upon a really interesting website that sells all manner of wildcrafted and certified organic essentials I do find this terribly interesting. Perhaps one day soon I will overcome my fear of committing to some scent.

Switching to Castile Soap is an easy way to eliminate some potent chemicals from my body. Making homemade shampoo from Castile Soap is one more way to simplify my life, buy fewer things. And finally save money and be less wasteful. If we have everything we need, then why would we lament not having more? Maybe we already have more than we need, but some dust must be wiped away from our eyes before we can see that for truth.